Streaming

Going back to work after an extended time off is hard. One of my unspoken blogging rules is not to complain, but it is difficult to leave Charlotte in someone else's care after we've played together, eaten together, laughed together, read together and run errands together. For everything, there is a season....

Yesterday, we went to the prosthetics place to get her some new braces. Compared to the old shoes, these are gigantic! Her toe joints are actually on the soles. Crazy. This was the only time I've been to the place, and the guy who fitted her was wonderful.

Today, I did something very Dead Poet's Society with my 10th graders (wink, wink, Allison). We started a unit of nonfiction which can be notoriously dry and boring, and because I didn't want to leap into a lengthy piece of nonfiction to begin, we went to Kate DiCamillio's website as a class and read her essay "On Writing." Then, purely on a whim, we took a brief field trip around the school looking at the world around us. I kept repeating that they had seen everything we were seeing before, but they needed to look at it differently and write down what they saw. The more the better. When we got back to the room, I assigned them a 300 word essay about what we had just done. One thing we'd seen, everything we'd seen, something we hadn't seen; it didn't matter to me. It's due next class. Oh captain, my captain.

Do you ever get tired of screens? Lately, I've been getting so tired of all the time we, as a society, spend in front of some sort of screen: computer screen, television screen (playing TV shows, movies or video games). And think of the versatility. We can watch TV on the computer. We can check news, weather and blog updates of any niche interest we have. We can download NetFlix directly to our TV by the PS3 or other box. We can load digital copies of movies and shows onto mp3 players and cell phones. Even in stores like WalMart, you can't escape screens talking to you and showing you pictures of things. Do you ever think about what we did before all of these screens? What would you do with your family tonight if none of the screens were turned on? For an hour? For the evening? Would you know what to do with each other? How did we find out information before we had so much access to everything? How frustrated do we get when we cannot access information at any given time? Were we happier before we could get to it all?

Much of my frustration, admittedly, is from Adam. He overdoses on video games sometimes, and lately has been one of those times. But if we had a totally screen-free evening (aside from tomorrow night which is church and a given screen-free night), I think we'd probably play a game. You know, an old fashioned game with pieces you touch and hold. Maybe Rummy. That was our honeymoon game; we must've played it 3-4 times a day all over the resort. I'd like to listen to music and have candles lit, and just talk, play rummy and drink water at the kitchen table. Sometimes, I feel like we all need just a little bit of that.